IntelliJ IDEA 2017.2 Help

Viewing Changes Information

This sections explains different ways to keep track of the changes that you and your teammates introduce to the source code.

Reviewing project history

IntelliJ IDEA allows you to review all changes made to the project sources that match the specified filters.

For distributed version control systems, such as Git and Mercurial, you can view project history in the Log tab of the Version Control tool window.

For centralised version control systems, such as Subversion, Perforce, CVS, ClearCase, and TFS, project history is available in the Repository tab of the Version Control tool window.

Tracking changes to a file in the editor

As you modify a file that is under version control, all changes are highlighted in the editor with change markers that appear in the left gutter next to the modified lines and show the type of changes introduced since the last synchronization with the repository. When you commit the modified file to the repository, the change markers disappear.

The changes you introduce to the text are color-coded:

line added.

line changed.

You can customize the default colors for line statuses. To do this, open the Settings dialog (Ctrl+Alt+S) and select Editor | Color Scheme | VCS on the left.

When you delete a line, the following marker appears in the left gutter: .

You can manage changes using the dedicated toolbar. To invoke it, hover the mouse cursor over a change marker and then click it. The toolbar is displayed together with a frame showing the previous contents of the modified line:

You can perform the following operations:

Item

Tooltip and Shortcut

Description

Previous Change / Next Change /

Ctrl+Shift+Alt+DownCtrl+Shift+Alt+Up

Use these buttons to navigate between changes.

Rollback

Ctrl+Alt+Z

Click this icon to rollback the changes. Note that all changes to the file since its last revision will be reverted, not just the current line.

Show Diff Ctrl+D

Click this icon to explore the differences between the current and the repository version of the current line in the Diff for Range dialog.

Copy Ctrl+C

Click this icon to copy the previous version of the modified line to the clipboard.

Show Detailed Differences

Toggle this icon to change the way differences to modified lines are presented when you click the line changed change marker. If enabled, the differences are highlighted with the corresponding color:

Comparing local changes with the repository version

Apart from navigating through your local changes within a file in the editor, you can review these changes compared to the base revision of the file in question.

You can review changes in one of the following ways:

In the Change Details pane in the Local Changes tab of the Version Control tool window. Select a file you want to review in the Local Changes tab and click the Preview Diff button on the toolbar.

This behavior is supported only when the Differences Viewer is invoked from the Version Control tool window.

Compare Previous/Next File Alt+LeftAlt+Right

Click these buttons to compare the local copy of the previous/next file with its update from the server.

These controls are only available if more than one file has been modified locally.

Jump to Source F4

Click this button to open the selected file in the active pane in the editor. The caret will be placed in the same position as in the Differences Viewer.

Viewer type

Use this drop-down list to choose the desired viewer type. The side-by-side viewer has two panels; the unified viewer has one panel only.

Both types of viewers enable you to

Edit code. Note that one can change text only in the right-hand part of the default viewer, or, in case of the unified viewer, in the lower ("after") line, i.e. in your local version of the file.

Perform the Apply/Append/Revert actions.

Whitespace

Use this drop-down list to define how the differences viewer should treat white spaces in the text.

Do not ignore: white spaces are important, and all differences are highlighted. This option is selected by default.

Trim whitespaces: ("\t", " ") , if they appear in the end and in the beginning of a line.

If two lines differ in trailing whitespaces only, these lines are considered equal.

If two lines are different, such trailing whitespaces are not highlighted in the By word mode.

Ignore whitespaces: white spaces are not important, regardless of their location in the source code.

Ignore whitespaces and empty lines: the following entities are ignored:

all whitespaces (as in the 'Ignore whitespaces' option)

all added or removed lines consisting of whitespaces only

all changes consisting of splitting or joining lines without changes to non-whitespace parts. For example, changing a b c to a \n b c is not highlighted in this mode.

Ignore imports and formatting: changes within import statements and whitespaces are ignored (whitespaces within String literals are respected though).

Highlighting mode

Select the way differences granularity is highlighted. The available options are:

Highlight words: the modified words are highlighted

Highlight lines: the modified lines are highlighted

Highlight split changes: if this option is selected, big changes are split into smaller 'atomic' changes. For example, A \n B vs. A X \n B X will be treated as two changes instead of one.

Do not highlight: if this option is selected, the differences are not highlighted at all. This option is intended for significantly modified files, where highlighting only introduces additional difficulties.

Collapse unchanged fragments

Click this button to collapse all unchanged fragments in both files. The amount of non-collapsible unchanged lines is configurable in the Diff & Merge settings page.

Synchronize scrolling

Click this button to simultaneously scroll both differences panes; if this button is released, each of the panes can be scrolled independently.

Editor settings

Click this button to invoke the list of available settings. Select or clear this options to show or hide whitespaces, line numbers and indent guides, to use or disable the use of soft wraps, and to set the highlighting level.

These commands are also available from the context menu of the differences viewer gutter.

This button only appears on the toolbar when the Use external diff tool option is enabled in the External Diff Tools settings page.

HelpF1

Click this button to show the corresponding help page.

N/A

Annotate

This option is only available from the context menu of the gutter.

Use this option to explore who introduced which changes to the repository version of the file in question, and when. The annotations view lets you see detailed information for each line of code, such as the version from which this line originated, the ID of the user who committed this line, and the commit date.

Use this keyboard shortcut to show the popup menu of the most commonly user diff commands.

Ctrl+Tab

Use this keyboard shortcut to switch between the left and the right panes.

Ctrl+Shift+Tab

Use this keyboard shortcut to select the position obtained by Ctrl+Tab in the opposite pane.

Ctrl+Z/Ctrl+Shift+Z

Use this keyboard shortcut to undo/redo a merge operation. Conflicts will be kept in sync with the text.

Viewing changes history for a file or selection

IntelliJ IDEA allows you to review changes made to files or even fragments of source code. The Show History and the Show History for Selection commands are available from the main VCS menu and from the context menu of files.

The change history for a selection of code is displayed in a separate window, in the form of the differences viewer.

Viewing the History for a File

Do one of the following:

Open a file in the editor. Then, on the main VCS menu or on the context menu of the editor tab, choose <VCS> | Show History.

In the Project tool window, right-click a file and choose <VCS> | Show History from the context menu.

The History tab for the selected file appears in the Version Control tool window, the name of the file is shown on the title bar of the tab.

You can use the toolbar buttons to compare the selected revision with the local version, compare classes from the selected revision, checkout the selected revision from your VCS, annotate the selected revision, etc.:

Click this button to open the page that corresponds to the selected commit on GitHub.

Show All Branches

Click this button to display changes from branches other than the current one.

Show Branches

This option is only available if you are using Perforce for version control.

Click this button to show branches.

Show All Revisions Submitted In Selected Changelist

This option is only available if you are using Perforce for version control.

Click this button to display the list of all revisions committed in the same changelist as the selected revision of a file.

Refresh

Click this button to refresh the current information.

Show Details

Click this button to show the commit message for the selected revision.

CloseCtrl+Shift+F4

Click this button to close the current history tab.

Viewing the History for a Selection

In the editor, select a fragment of the source code.

Choose <VCS> | Show History for Selection from the main VCS menu, or on the context menu of the selection.

The history for the selected fragment will open in a separate window.

Checking file status

IntelliJ IDEA allows you to check the status of project files relative to the repository. File status shows you which operations have been performed on the file in question since you last synchronized with the repository.

You can check the status of a file in any interface element (e.g. the editor, or various tool windows) by the color used to highlight the file name.

You can customize the default colors for file statuses in Colors and Fonts settings page.

Color

File Status

Description

Black

Up to date

File is unchanged.

Gray

Deleted

File is scheduled for deletion from the repository.

Blue

Modified

File has changed since the last synchronization.

Green

Added

File is scheduled for addition to the repository.

Violet

Merged

File is merged by your VCS as a result of an update.

Brown

Unversioned

File exists locally, but is not in the repository, and is not scheduled for adding.

File is deleted locally, but was not scheduled for deletion, and still exists in the CVS repository.

Dark cyan

Switched

The file is taken from a different branch than the whole project. This status is valid for CVS and SVN.

Using annotations

What are VCS annotations?

Annotation is a form of file presentation that shows detailed information for each line of code. In particular, for each line you can see the version from which this line originated, the user ID of the person who committed this line, and the commit date. The annotated view helps you find out who did what and when, and trace back the changes.

Annotating lines of code is available for ClearCase, TFS, Mercurial, Git, CVS, Perforce and Subversion.

The Annotate command is available from VCS-specific nodes of the Version Control menu, the context menu of the Editor left gutter, file context menus, and the file history view.

When annotations are enabled, the left gutter looks similar to the following example:

Annotations for lines modified in the current revision, are marked with bold type and an asterisk.

Configuring the amount of information shown in the annotations pane

Enable annotations and right-click the annotations gutter.

Select View in the context menu and select or deselect the following options:

Revision: select this option if you want to see the number of the changelist within which the annotated changes were checked in.

Date: select this option if you want to see the date when the annotated changes were checked in.

Author: select this option if you want to see the name of the user who checked in the annotated changes.

Commit number: select this option if you want to see the revision number of the current file.

Colors: use this control to toggle between the following highlighting modes:

Author: select this option if you want to highlight changes made by different authors with different colors.

Order: select this option if you want annotation colors to indicate how long ago a change was made. The entire file history is divided into several time periods containing an equal number of commits, and each time period is assigned its own color. The most recent changes are highlighted in green, while the oldest changes are highlighted in red:

Hide: select this option if you do not want to use color highlighting. In this case, all annotations will be displayed in gray.

Names: use this control to select how user names will be displayed. The following options are available:

Last name

First name

Full name

To view a commit message for an annotated change, hover the mouse cursor over an annotation. A tooltip will appear showing the commit message for the corresponding change:

The amount of information displayed in the tooltip depends on the version control system you are using and is not affected by the annotation settings.

Annotating previous revisions

IntelliJ IDEA lets you annotate not only the current file revision, but also it's previous revisions. The following options are available from the context menu of the annotations gutter:

Annotate Revision: this option is useful if you want to check what a file looked like after a particular change was committed. To do this, right-click this change and select Annotate Revision from the context menu.

Annotate Previous Revision: this option is useful if you find yourself in a situation when the last change in a particular line is meaningless, for example if all that was changed is code formatting. In this case, you can check what the previous revision of the file looked like. To do this, right-click a change and select Annotate Previous Revision from the context menu.

You can also annotate a particular file from the file history view. In the History tab, select the file version you want to review, right-click the corresponding line and select Annotate from the context menu.

Viewing the differences between revisions

To review the differences between the annotated version of a file and its previous version, position the cursor on an annotation, right-click it and select Show Diff from the context menu. IntelliJ IDEA opens the Differences viewer for files:

Navigating to log

If you are using Git for version control, you can also jump from the annotations view to the corresponding commit in the Log tab of the Version Control tool window.

To do this, position the cursor on an annotation, right-click it and select Select in Git log from the context menu. You can also use the Copy revision number command to located a revision in the log.

For projects hosted on https://github.com/, the Open on GitHub command is also available that takes you to the corresponding commit.